Star warriors adieu

Robert Bowman (right)examines a model of a B-25, which Bowman flew early in his Air Force career. He is with Bob Warman of Springfield, who invited him to the capital city.

PHOTO BY JOB CONGER

In 1977, Dr. Robert M. Bowman, head of
advanced space programs for the Department of Defense, authored a
report describing a new missile-defense shield system called the
“Star Wars Defense.”

Six years later, President
Ronald Reagan announced that his administration was pushing
“Star Wars” — Reagan named it the Strategic
Defense Initiative — but, by then, Bowman was having second
thoughts.

Star Wars, he concluded, was not a defensive
strategy at all but an offensive threat that would fool none of
this country’s potential adversaries.

In 1983, Bowman took his opposition public and
founded the Institute for Space and Security Studies, which became
a sounding board for people interested in space and other
high-technology issues affecting national security. In short, Lt.
Col. Robert Bowman (Ret.), a combat pilot who flew 101 missions in
the Vietnam War, became a peace activist.

Last week, Bowman met at the Holy Land Diner
with a small group of friends at a dinner honoring his efforts for
peace. Springfield is the “launching pad” of
Bowman’s 60-city, 75-day national tour. Bowman calls it his
farewell tour because he has been battling a virulent form of
cancer — “a rare form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma,”
he says —
that’s temporarily under control but likely to require
aggressive treatment in a few months.

Bowman, who ran for president in 2000 and
endorsed John Kerry in 2004, is an old hand at public appearances.
“During Reagan’s administration, I gave my anti-Star
Wars speech over 5,000 times,” he says. The arguments he gave
then are the same ones he uses today in an effort to stop the Bush
administration’s continued support for the program: Star Wars
only works if the United States is the aggressor.

“The great problem with the system is
vulnerability. Whether the system uses orbiting mirrors
in space, laser battle stations in space that attempt boost-phase
intercept, it will be totally useless if you’re an innocent party
sitting back and waiting to be attacked. Any country that can build an
ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] has the capability to take
out your Star Wars system. Today’s systems that are taking their
place — the airborne laser [flown on modified Boeing 747s] and
ship-mounted missiles on Aegis cruisers — have to be within 300
miles of the ICBM launch sites, and when they’re positioned
there, they’re sitting ducks. The only way to limit that
vulnerability is to preempt, not be the innocent party sitting back.
When you position the equipment, your intention to first strike becomes
obvious.

“The only reason for Star Wars is as a
backup in case we miss a missile launch pad or two, after our
disarming first strike, to take out the retaliatory response when
they launch it. You have to be the aggressor for the system to be
of any use.”

Bowman says that weapons detonated on the
ground, not delivered by guided missiles, pose a greater threat to
national security. “The existence of [Star Wars] only
increases the fear and hatred, which is the cause of terrorism,
which is the big threat to us today. The last thing a nuclear
terrorist will do is start a 15-year development program to build
an ICBM and dig a hole to shoot it out of.

“He’s going to float it up the
Potomac River on a barge or smuggle it into the University of
Illinois wrapped in a bale of marijuana.”

So what’s Bowman’s program for
national security?

“The American people are not secure
because we deny democracy, freedom and human rights to Third World
people. The solution is to change our ways.”